DATA
by NeueHaasGrotesk
Summary: Martin is an android, programmed with real-life personality programs. Some people like androids, and many others don't, but they're necessary to have for jobs that humans cannot do. Douglas doesn't like androids, thinking that they are both false and creepy, and Martin can't fathom why Douglas is so mean to him sometimes . AU
1. Chapter 1

When money had its say, things certainly progressed fast.

They were about everywhere now, in every place that he could think of and every place that he could turn to, seamlessly incorporated and assimilated into the workings of human life, soon establishing themselves as a part of their routine, both an imitation and mockery of human beings themselves - the government had called them androids.

In the beginning, they were rather easy to identify, an uncoordinated mess of clicking and whirring metal parts seemingly fixed upon and to each other, held together by screws and bolts, with what might pass for a face, if it was starring solo in a horror film. They were ungainly, back when experimentation was just beginning, a period of testing, producing more of these abominations in different shapes and forms. Some were constructed in more details than others, and some not. They had limited movements, and rather limited thought processes, and that was alright. They were perhaps, to Douglas, the best types that they had ever made simply because they were a nightmare in their own rights, despite of what they could do to aid the human race. It was clear and simple, and he liked it that way.

Next, came the ones that tried their best to masquerade and pass as a human being. It still wasn't perfect, though, you see. More money was invested, research was peaking, and everything was being 'improved', or so they say. Creators gave them bodies, bodies more alike to the humans' own and less like their former predecessors. They had flesh colored bodies, occasionally with bits missing, panels uncovered to expose the metal and wiring underneath, with a proper head and face that responded just as stiffly and mechanically. What was truly nightmare inducing about them were the way that they responded to the programs keyed into their system, the way that they met all their criteria half way. Scientists were trying to get them to imitate human emotions, and it was horrifying the way their expressions formed, plastic and garish as one might find a really old porcelain doll in the attic with half its face smashed in, glassy eyes either unblinking, or blinking at a rate so standard it was unsettling, each motion calculated and too smooth to be human, with what might be a friendly expression frozen on their faces, lips too wide and too plastic to be natural.

Douglas often fancied a maw full of sharp teeth if they ever opened their jaws wide, ready to rip an unsuspecting victim's head off if they got too close, lured in by that faux, programmed friendliness.

There was a known glitch, about that particular batch which made them freeze up suddenly in the middle of their speech, or whatever it was that they were made to do, for intervals from seconds to minutes at a time, unnaturally still and stiff, faces still twisted in those horrifying expressions of theirs that only scientists would think to key in, and there was nothing anyone could do until they unjammed themselves and continued smoothly on as though nothing had happened. It raised goosebumps on Douglas' arms, particularly so if they stuttered like a broken record, and when the entire batch was scrapped, he was glad to see them go.

The next generation was better by design and make by far, superior in every sense and their capabilities, closely resembling humans and imitating humans, and that was where it got hard to tell human and android apart. Scientists had found a way to program real-life human personalities into them, creating the perfect lie once the hurdle of their capabilities were overcome, and they were able to move and work independently on their own. That was the point when they spilled over from their specific industries into the daily lives of civilians, taking up minor jobs, jobs that no one wanted to do, while their world moved on to something further high up and was attainable. The man who cleared the refuse, the girl who greeted people every day at the door – androids were steadily replacing humans for companies who can afford to hire them. The majority of them was being integrated and programmed for jobs where it was simply too much of a hazard for human beings to work and stay in for extended periods of times. His company had done just that, quite a couple of years ago, and entire departments had been cleaned out, replaced with smiling, cheerful androids working in tandem with their human colleagues.

The new development was met with mixed reactions from the human race, or mostly the people that had been closely partnered with an android for work. Of course, there were always those that met the recent developments with enthusiasm about the progression and advancements of science and technology, and those who simply put, had a fetish about the androids themselves, but there was also a fairly large group who disliked it. There were those who were stoic, unmoved by the changes, adapting quickly and taking it into stride, and those that made their displeasure rather loudly known. Debates and articles were written, issues discussed over tasteless lunches and equally tasteless dinners, while funds continued to be invested in the research and developments of those creatures. Eventually, things settled down as they always did, androids slowly turning into a normality.

Douglas stayed clear of them, avoiding them as much as he could. It was a little hard to pinpoint what exactly he hated about them. Perhaps it was their appearance, or their personalities, real and convincing as they may be but he knew that it was simply programmed, nothing than a few key codes of information in a large and complex system. Perhaps it was due to what they had underneath, or the old nightmares that still visited now and then, sharp teeth and grotesque shapes and bolts and screws. Or perhaps it was the way that they were a lie pretending to be real, pretending to have a life along with the rest of the human race when they clearly had none. Doing what they were told to, made to do, and discarded when they had outlived their usefulness, Douglas still remembered that one trip to the scrapyard, a large dumping area full of machines and things metal and rusty and androids. If he didn't know better, it might have looked like a playground come out of a horror survival film, with strewn arms and legs and faces split down the middle, torsos without limbs and heads without a body, crushed ruthlessly beneath a giant machine to salvage the metal from them, cracking up the grins and the ghost remains of their expressions, with some others still charged, ambling and shuffling about with what little limbs they have left, lips spread in a wide smile and repeating their last lines over and over again-

Scientists should really consider keeping certain appearances apart.

He had thought that he would be lucky enough to be spared one of those androids, but that was where luck ran out on him, and test pilots were replaced with the entire lot of them anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

"Fair wind, clear skies, she's flying beautifully, Douglas! Look at how she takes to the sky," the voice came over the radio, the awe crystal clear.

"So long as nothing is falling off," Douglas replies gruffly. "Or _is_ something falling off? Do concentrate on the matter at hand, Martin. This is hardly the first time you are on a plane, and this behavior is rather unprofessional, if you are asking for my opinion,_Captain_, which you will be receiving whether you want it or not."

What could have been passed for a soft coo sounded through the radio, closely followed by an embarrassed cough. "No, hardly. No, _well_. Everything seems to be in perfect working order, we're approaching a height of- "

"Martin, contrary to your belief, and this may cause you considerable disappointment, but the fact is that I can _read_," Douglas cut Martin off, watching the screens before, flashing and blinking with continuous incoming information. "Temperature, external and internal sound, pressure levels are all well within normal ranges, conditions stable. Nothing to worry your little head about, disappointing as that may be for you."

"_Douglas_," a hiss came over the radio. "She satisfies the condition criteria well, doesn't she?"

"Yes, yes, Martin. Kindly proceed with your performance phase test, if you would be so kind to stop admiring the skies or running your hands all over the control panel."

Douglas was idly watching the screens computing the gathered data when Martin returned from the test flight, a wide grin on the android's face. He didn't look up when Martin sat down beside him, setting his helmet down by his feet, instead flicking the page open to the next, scanning through the words without reading. The team had planned this carefully, and with today's performance, they were cleared to move on to the next quarter of flight testing after they had checked everything through once more.

"She'll be air worthy, soon," Martin was going on excitedly next to him. "They've really outdone themselves this time."

"And our captain has outdone himself," Douglas drawled. "By not crashing the pretty new plane he just got his hands on. Nothing loose, or dropped off, or torn off. Why, Captain Crieff, I must say, _well done._"

According to the company website, work partnerships between flight test engineers and their test pilots were described as civil, but Douglas was pretty sure that the two of them were anything but. Although, they did get along somehow with each another to get the job done. Douglas was a good FTE, albeit a slightly lazy ones when it came to follow-up procedures after a test flight. Martin, or to be exact, MRTN-10, their government owned flight test pilot, was every bit the rule abiding and stringent pilot that Douglas had expected, with their expected programmed unhealthy dose of cheeriness. Built with a head of copper curls and a pale, freckly complexion, the android was thin and gangly, awkward with his limbs and just as clumsy as he looked on land. A barcode was printed on the back of his neck near the base of his skull with his model number and make, though Douglas was fairly certain that Martin was unaware of its presence, what with his strange human-like behavior, sleeping, eating, and so on. If anything, Douglas supposed that it was rather abnormal behavior, for Martin was the only android that ate, as far as he was concerned. He wasn't even sure where the food went, or why Martin remained working without the need to be charged, but so long as Martin didn't switch off in the middle of a test flight or something equally as important, Douglas would remain unconcerned about the matter.

"I- the last plane, I didn't _crash_ her," Martin sounded indignant now, drawing in a breath, Douglas fancied, for patience. "I simply called for emergency test interruptions to the ground team, and for good reasons too!"

"It hardly matters," Douglas picked up the sheets of data, and filed them accordingly, knowing that there were similar soft copies in their system units, data already copied over to the rest of their supervising team. "A little chink in the planning and you call for an emergency landing – you must really learn to be a little more flexible, Captain. Sometimes, it may just be your mind playing little tricks on you." Or possibly whatever system that he was running on, Douglas added mentally, setting the files and test cards aside in a haphazard stack, and watching as Martin immediately reached over to neaten the pile up with another hiss. As expected, because god forbid there be anything untidy on the desk.

"When is the post-flight debrief?" Martin asked instead, in a quick change of subject, his voice tight now. "Goodness, Douglas, if you would give data proper respect instead of strewing them around like scrap paper-"

"Oh, I do," Douglas waved a hand, getting up heavily from his comfortable chair. "I have it all in my mind. Definitely more respect than I give certain pilots, definitely. File it up for me, won't you? The debriefing is, ah," he gave a perfunctory glance to his watch unit on his wrist. "In about, three hours' time. Enough time for everyone to have a break, get some food and short rest. Now if you will excuse this _old_ engineer. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't a particularly good thing when one sits at a desk and before the station units for extended periods of time, unlike certain _things_. "

He left Martin gazing after him in puzzlement, making his way to the canteen on the search for food. Knowing Martin, he would be the one handling all the reports, again, meticulous and insistent in noting down every single bit of data that they had gleaned, and comparing it to the previous, keeping all his paperwork in order, and if he had his say, arranged in alphabetical order and all color coded. He left the analysis to Douglas, though, although he had his clumsy attempts at that, all of which that did not end particularly well. If paperwork kept Martin happy and busy, then so be it.

Whatever happiness meant to androids, that is.


	3. Chapter 3

Martin had had this job for as long as the pilot was concerned. Not that he was complaining, no! He would never dream of complaining, but it did get tedious sometimes. Sometimes, such as now.

He studied the sheets of data scattered before him, and breathed a soft sigh, before pulling them towards him and shuffling them back into the correct order, filing them back in with the older information, and sat down to fill in the test pilot's data on paper, as well as comparing the information with what was in the unit. Technically, it was a job shared between the test pilot and the flight test engineer, but there was no point in trying to force Douglas to stay when he clearly deemed paperwork beneath him. The man never did or completed any of the paperwork, preferring to keep most of the information on the unit, and left the rest of the work to Martin. While it was true that everything was computed and filed electronically now, having a completely up-to-date hard copy was fairly important as well. System failures were rare to unheard of, but Martin liked to err on the safe side. He also loved to bring the computed and compiled data back into the little room that he stayed in to pore over when he wasn't busy flying or working - just something to fill the gaps of nothing and boredom in between until the next test flight. After all, it wasn't every day that a prototype is ready for her test-flight, and he certainly wasn't the only pilot around on the team.

Printing out the reports for the debrief, he clipped the different sections with his paperclips - a different colour for a different section - and assembled them into their various stacks for each one on the team. Sighing yet again, he set them in neat piles before him. There was still one hour, thirty-four minutes and twenty-nine seconds to the debrief, and that was a long time to wait on his own. No doubt Douglas would be having lunch with the team right now, and he could imagine them gathered around a table, exchanging casual conversation over trays of food or whatever the cafeteria staff thought of to cook up and serve. Ever since the one time when he had joined them for lunch, he never did again, staying back with the units and the data and the screens that he felt most comfortable with. He pulled over a sheet of paper from the recycled tray, scanning the blacked out information, and then smoothened it out carefully over the surface of the desk. Socializing was never his forte, and he seldom mingled with his colleagues outside of work time, keeping to himself. It wasn't that they weren't nice people. They were, and they made a great working team together, but outside of work, he was often left feeling like the odd one out, the strange bit that never sat right along with the others. It certainly didn't help his case when all he wanted to talk about was the prototype that was currently in testing. They had smiled at him, rather politely whenever he brought the topic up, and only shared his enthusiasm when they were working, and sometimes not even then. Douglas never said a single thing, but Martin did not miss the long sideways look and that smirk each time conversation fell short, and eventually he turned to writing in the thin journal that he kept, made out of bits of blank paper that he could secrete away and kept together with binder clips. When the cafeteria staff continued to be reluctant in serving him lunch upon scanning his cards, he eventually kept to eating alone from food that he would get from the auto-vend machines. They didn't have much to offer, but it was something, and that was enough for him.

He carefully folded the paper, making sure that the corner was precisely a right angle, before smoothing a finger along the crease to make a perfect fold.

His work partnership with Douglas was by far the longest, and perhaps the most civil. The man was brilliant, and he knew it, irritatingly so. Martin had been dubious in the beginning when they were paired together, the man often slipping by, leaving his work half completed, but when it came to the real business, he was anything but inefficient, although Martin did not always agree with the way that he did his job. There was nothing that he could not solve, or a problem that he could not fix. People often said that Douglas Richardson made planes fly simply by talking to them in his rich, deep voice, and Martin might have agreed if such a notion wasn't completely ridiculous and silly. The man was simply good at what he did, and could have been a much better one if he would simply fulfill all of his duties responsibly as was expected of him, and not swanning off the moment he was able to, shrugging off the work onto Martin. Work time was work time, break time was break time, and he had no desire to have the two bleed into each other, and so left Martin alone to work overtime.

Beneath his hands, a paper aeroplane took shape, precise and neat, and he turned it over, spreading its wings beneath his fingers.

Aircrafts and planes fascinated him to no end, and he considered it an honour to be able to take them on their first test flight, never mind the dangers that came with the job. It hadn't been very long until he began to take an interest in what the flight test engineers did, them being the people that he worked closely in tandem with regularly. He understood a little, apart from his own knowledge, but never as in-depth or accurately, and it did not satisfy him. He tried his best learning on his own, picking up what little he could glean from his previous partnered engineers. Douglas picked up on his interest, but did not dissuade him like the rest, but would patiently explain to him in detail things that he did not yet know of. Martin had then asked for textbooks from the others, books that were old and were no longer needed, and they had been kind enough to pass it on to him, albeit with a puzzled look.

_Oh,_ they would all say when they knew of his intentions. _Figuring it out is our job. You don't have to trouble yourself with that. Leave it to the engineers. Test flying is yours, isn't it? You're good at that. _He didn't particularly understand their polite smiles, but they had let him have the books, and he was happy.

After that, he spent his free time studying them on his own, trying to make sense of them, of the calculations, the numbers and the data shown, and tried to see how it correlated to real life circumstances. He had tried his hand at it, with Douglas next to him, and had received a scathing comment for his efforts.

_It would seem that Sir now wishes to take over my job. How ambitious of Sir, indeed._

Sometimes Douglas was patient, and sometimes he wasn't as kind, and he made it loudly, rather painfully known on Martin's part. He knew that it wasn't part of job, but it was related to it and he simply couldn't help but to be interested, as well. Everything that made a plane, the almost magical numbers and calculations of energy and power and weight that could lift tonnes of heavy metal into the sky. Everything was orchestrated and calculated and nothing was coincidence and it was _fascinating_.

He moved the paper plane through the air, watching it, imagining the lift, the sense of pressure, the feeling of the wind beneath the wings of the plane. Soon, soon they would test her limits, and he would be the one to fly it, and Martin had to admit to the excitement tugging at his middle, a small smile lighting his features. He would write it down in his journal, of course, when he retired for rest, kept carefully next to all the files on the test planes that he flown before, with each little detail carefully written down in neat handwriting and blue ink. He thought of his small room, of its naked grey walls and its bleak white lighting, and a steel bed with a thin, worn mattress cushioning it, and the haphazard pictures and drawn images taped to the walls, his files and journals shelved next to his bed, a little plane model that Douglas had let him have when they were done with it sitting on the small cabinet, and hoped that it wouldn't take too long for them to move testing on.

A soft hiss sounded behind him as the door slid open, and Martin hurriedly set the paper plane down, snatching up the pen and leaning over the papers again, although he knew that he was done with them. It would not do to look unprofessional, after all. The door hissed again, sliding close, and he heard shifting, and the rustle of a paper bag.

He didn't look up when the paper bag was set near his elbow, the faint scent of food teasing him. Sixty minutes and thirty five seconds to the debriefing with a paper aeroplane on the desk and a neat pile of reports for everyone.

"Lunch," Douglas said simply, sitting down into his own chair, stretching out luxuriously. "Unless Sir deems himself to be above canteen food, of course. I would not dissuade Sir from living on auto-vend cardboard, but who am I to- "

"Alright, Douglas!" Martin cut in furiously, face flushed, reaching out for the paper bag. "I'll eat it!" A short silence stretched between them, interrupted by the quiet rustling of brown paper. "T-thank you."

Douglas reached over to take the reports from his desk, instead, running a thumb through the copies and over the paper clips, and the one that Martin had put into his file for taking back with him. Martin watched him, while pulling out a greasy sandwich with a generous filling of corned beef and egg, and a paper cup of warm coffee, uncertain if Douglas would reprimand him for bringing data home. They all did, but others usually had their own personal unit where they stayed, and thus had their information password locked, while Martin simply had a hardcopy to hand to deal with. Douglas merely thumbed where there were two blue paper clips together, and raised an eyebrow at Martin.

"Filing mistake?"

"Hardly. I- I ran out of green paperclips."

A sandwich, half a cup of coffee, and a new box of colored paper clips on the desk, there was still ten minutes and eight seconds to the debriefing.

Nothing was said throughout, but it was enough.


	4. Chapter 4

The next week was a terribly trying one for everyone in the team all around, heated tempers straining against leashes that were just that bit close to snapping. Martin carefully made himself as unobtrusive as possible, his chair pushed up next to the wall and keeping just a little bit of his side of the desk to himself while the team pored over data and documents and files, terse conversation going back and forth between them. Martin watched them, even as he nervously made more of his little paper creations – origami, as the book said. Someone had left a rather tattered copy of An Introduction to Basic Origami, and he had taken to it almost immediately to fill up his time when he wasn't filing this or that. Mostly basic work that wasn't necessary, but nice to have something to do with his hands.

No one paid him any attention, not even Douglas, who looked terribly serious with spectacles perched on his nose, pencil in hand and sheet and sheets of calculations and writings before him. Martin did his contributions by often making them mugs of coffee, and refilling them when they ran out, before sitting down once more in his chair, his little paper planes and animals keeping him company. There were once or twice when he tried to offer his own views, but the scathing glare that Douglas sent his way shut him up quickly enough, cringing against the wall and smiling apologetically. As a test pilot, they would gladly thank him to keep his mouth shut, since he was only hired to fly the plane and not to analyze it – that was their job, and for him not to add more trouble to what they already have, thank you very much.

Opinions were exchanged, and there were long nights spent working when it should have been spent resting, as Martin realized when he sleepily went into Douglas' office one night when he found himself wide awake and unable to sleep to find the entire team still up, and went to make them coffee again. One paper aeroplane slowly became two, and two became ten, and soon there was a good pile of them on his small bit of desk, using whatever scrap paper that he could get his hands on. He soon took to making his own variations, keeping a shy eye on the team who worked quietly and efficiently with Douglas at the head of it.

The man was efficient, and entirely focused, not allowing himself any distractions. His usual sarcasm and wit were absent when there was urgency for time, and it allowed Martin to quietly admire him from a distance, hiding behind his papers and files. Sometimes, Douglas would suddenly stand and leave the office without a word, returning hours later and settling down to look at the data once again, and no one would say a word. Martin was sure that it was something that would blow over soon, either way. They had a good team, and they always got rid and solved any problems and difficulties that came their way, as a team, and he tried his best not to think of how little of his involvement there is.

Eventually, it eased off, the sheets of papers appearing to be lesser and lesser, filed away carefully by Martin, the mood slowly easing up back into Martin's comfort zone, eventually leaving only the occasional meeting together and Douglas alone in his office nursing a mug of strong black coffee. Martin slowly moved his little paper animals and various paper plane sculptures that he had lovingly named after the models of planes that he had successfully flown back to his half of the desk, and peered carefully at Douglas to see if he minded, noticing the dark shadows beneath the man's eyes, and the weary expression and lines at the corners of his eyes, and the tired way that he sat slumped in his chair even as his eyes continuously scanned the screens before him in a fierce concentration.

"Everything alright?" the question was out of his mouth before he had even realized, and Martin pulled back immediately, smiling hesitantly at Douglas when the man's gaze slid over to him.

"Thought you had gathered too much cobwebs in the corner and had gone mute," Douglas said, after a while, returning his attentions to the screen. "Everything is fine, Captain. Fine as fine can be. You will be able to fly her soon, so you won't be a useless Captain, don't worry."

Martin flinched, and bit into his lip, before pulling on a smile that he didn't feel. "That's… right. Okay." He frowned just slightly as Douglas reached for his coffee again, a mug that he had refilled three times today so far. "Why don't you take a break? If she's fine, I mean, of course she's fine what am I saying… " Martin broke off, scratching at the back of his neck awkwardly. "You look tired, I mean. Maybe you should cut down on the coffee… take a break?" He finally suggested into the suddenly heavy silence, setting down his latest paper sculpture of the current prototype paper down next to Douglas' elbow. "She will still fly, I know you will let her fly. You can still take a break."

The silence stretched, and snapped as Douglas shoved his chair backwards, getting to his feet, slamming the mug of coffee down on the desk, causing Martin to take a step back in alarm, the dark brown liquid sloshing over onto the surface of the desk, cringing in the face of Douglas' sudden anger, his own smile frozen on his face in terror.

"Yes, take a break, why don't I?" Douglas seethed, towering over Martin, crowding him back against the wall. "Why don't the FTE take a break – or the entire team, while they're at it? Why spend time poring over pointless datas and numbers? Don't they have better things to do with their time? No, they must like staying up for countless nights and fiddling around." The engineer's voice was getting louder and louder, before turning painfully mocking, his words a sharp knife slipping between Martin's ribs and twisting. "Unlike you, there are issues that we must solve other than flying a damn plane, and relationships and life problems that we have to deal with. Unlike you, who have never had any problems inside or out of work, who cannot understand anything outside of flying a plane, who never had any relationships to deal with, or a semblance of normal life, no we normal people _cannot_ take a break to sit and fold paper planes and ships with you because we have _work_ to do!"

Martin was shaking, nausea twisting his stomach, looking terribly pale and feeling as though his heart was bleeding out from inside him, his fingers digging into pale flesh where he had wrapped his arms around himself defensively to protect against Douglas' anger. Douglas, who was tired, and stressed out, he told himself, and had nothing but a sandwich and too much coffee since normal. Douglas, who simply needed someone or something to vent on and Martin was the closest but Martin was his friend so-

"You know nothing about what we are doing," Douglas continued in the now terrifyingly silent room, his voice low and quiet and that made it all the more _worse_. "You don't have to try to pretend to understand – your pathetic attempts are laughable at most. Did you really think that you could help? Chipping in with your opinions and advice? Hovering in the corner, messing up my table, and now trying to be _sympathetic_ and _understanding_. Is this my lucky day?" Douglas gave a bark of laughter, ignoring how pale Martin suddenly looked, plowing onwards ruthlessly. "Do what you're hired to do, Martin, and stick to that. We don't need your 'help', or your opinions. And in fact, I would like very much if you could just clean this mess off my desk and stay- wherever your own office is- or stay on the plane, since you love it so much, as long as I don't see you. I'm sick of your hovering around my elbows like a little timid mouse trying to prove himself to be more than what he is because _we know that that is all you can be!_"

The silence was thunderous, except for Douglas' panting, Martin trying his best to become one with the wall, bile in the back of his throat, the screens flickering behind them passively, a silent witness.

"I- I see," Martin's voice was soft, quavering, the ginger haired pilot looking at anywhere but Douglas, swallowing against the tears that were threatening to spill over, pulling together the shreds of his own dignity. "I w-won't bother you anymore, then," he said, gingerly moving to the desk and then scrambling to clear up his pile of origami crafts, not caring if they were crushed in the process, quickly restoring Douglas' desk to what it would have been if he weren't here at all, clutching the papers to his chest. "I- I'll be off, then. They know where t-to find me if… " He bit off the last of his sentence viciously, turning to the door instead, Douglas still standing where he was, unmoving. "D-do rest a little, Douglas," he said softly, and fled.

Douglas waited until the door hissed shut behind him, before throwing himself down upon his chair, rubbing at his face with a hand, the anger draining out of him as quickly as it had come, and shoving away any guilt that he had for MRTN-10. It had been a stressful and tiring week, and all he wanted was some silence. He tried not to think about the hurt expression on MRTN-10's face, or the way he fled from him, or the words that he had said to him. It was all truth, either way. Androids were androids, and androids should stick to what they do. They were made pretty realistic, nowadays, Douglas thought, cleaning up the coffee on his desk, feeling the beginnings of a headache nagging at him. Perhaps he really should take a break. Nothing would break or disappear while he rested, probably.

The plane MRTN-10 set down on his desk lay lopsidedly, one of its wings irreparably crushed, and he picked it up, glancing once at its delicate workmanship and the painful creases of paper where he had squashed it, before tossing it into the paper bin.

He didn't see MRTN-10 for the rest of the week, left alone by the android as he was told to.

Two weeks later, the crash happened.


	5. Chapter 5

Technically, in black and white and on the computers, the only trouble that the crash had caused was purely the additional cost that had to be forked out for repairs and additional materials. Of course, there was the damage to their reputation, the company who had manufactured and designed the plane, as well as set backs to their schedule while the plane was being repaired, but no one was making too much noise, least of all the engineers, of course. They were simply hired by the company, and are in no way majorly responsible for the crash of the plane. Besides, there was nothing that money cannot solve in the times that they are all currently living in, and most of them are simply content to wait and to recalculate the errors and to fix the mistakes so that the plane would take to the skies better and more successfully the next time.

The crash made it to the news two days later, but downplayed rather significantly, and no one doubted that money was hard at work once more.

The good thing out of the entire disaster was that no one was injured, the news said. Ever since the implementation of androids in place of humans for high-fatality jobs, the human fatality rate has dropped by a considerable amount, and that the industry was looking into expanding its series. It is their utmost concern that humans continue to work in a safe and secure environment-

Douglas switched his monitors back to work, charting graphs and numbers.

No one mentioned anything about the test flight android that flew the plane.

It was truly no one's fault that the plane would suddenly fault itself when it was 50,000 feet up in the air. No one would blame the engineers for a plane crashing when it was undergoing the phase of the testing that they were holding then, pushing the plane to its flight limits – that was all the purpose of flight tests, after all, to ensure that they were safe for flying when it were humans piloting it. There were certain risks, great risks that they had taken this time, to build an aeroplane that far exceeds the speed capabilities of the fastest plane that was currently in production on the market, and it surprised no one when it fell rather spectacularly out of the sky.

It can't be helped, the team said to each other, quietly, over the crowd and chatter in the canteen and a table laden with bland food in white and sterile containers. It was going that fast and if anything could go wrong, it would go wrong. Imagine who it might have been a few years ago. At least it's replaceable this time, without all the emotional hassle and fuss of funerals and such.

And just maybe, his colleagues joke over the quickly cooling meal, you may have a paperclips-free desk for once, and actually get work done. Douglas forces a laugh with them, and stabs his fork into his garden salad, looking too green and too crisp and too cheerful with its cherry tomatoes for him, and tries his best not to think about his empty office and paper cups of coffee.

The silence was, when he was alone, a yawning gap in the office, lingering in every nook and cranny beneath the desk, and hovering around the screens, announcing its presence rudely from the side of the table that was now his once more. A lopsided paper model of the plane sat on the extra chair in the room, rescued by a fellow colleague with too much curiosity, dipping fingers into the paper bin to rescue the debris, to admire handiwork made by mechanics.

_What a prediction of the future,_ he had said, laughingly, as he put it onto Douglas' desk. _I have no idea why they would want to compute pointless talents into work androids._

Later, when the man had left, Douglas had picked it up, and carefully, feeling rather foolish, smoothened out the creases in the crumpled paper, his replacement for the twisted and crushed metal that he cannot fix, gingerly straightening the wing, running fingers over imaginary cracks and jagged edges in the metal hull. _Maybe_, his mind whispered treacherously, _if you had not crushed it, the engines would not have caught fire, and the wing would not have been crushed in the same way. This is your punishment._

He is anything but a superstitious man, but the plane finds its place in the corner of his desk, lying lopsidedly, irreparable creases in its paper wing, a quiet parody, as guilt burrows its way deeper inside unseen, a parasitic heaviness settling deep within his gut.

It is two weeks later when MRTN-10 is returned to them, looking a little worse for wear, but otherwise fine, walking in through the hissing doors once more to resume his seat beside Douglas.

"Oh, hello," he says, smiling in his slightly awkward manner even as his engineer stares at him, visually scanning him for any missing limbs, or appendages, or, well, he doesn't know, a sign that the android had been in a crash fourteen days ago? "Shall I make coffee?" He reaches, as usual, for the empty mugs on the desk, and turns away with them.

Operations are as per normal.

Martin looks the same on the outside, with a head of copper curls, pale skin and gangly limbs and not a freckle more or missing. Douglas does not know to feel relief that Martin looks exactly the same as he was, or to feel guilty for feeling afraid that he might return with those abominations of science and with half a face missing, revealing metal, wire and circuits below.

"So… what happens now?" Martin asked after settling gingerly onto the edge of his seat, a mug of hot coffee cradled between his hands. "When do we fly again?"

"Not apprehensive of another crash?" Douglas asked, genuinely curious for once. How did androids feel, suffering wear and tear and damage, permanent or temporary again and again on a never ending cycle, to be put back to work until it brings them to the fill, as other better and improved models come forward to assume their place, a vicious cycle of faux life and death. Did they think? Do they have opinions, thoughts of their own? Or do they carry their life's purpose with them to the fill till the day they shut down completely, as though repeating motions and words once familiar to their systems would save them from the condemnation of man or at least a sentence less harsh than being torn from limb to limb and crushed beneath unforgiving machines to be salvaged for metal and occasionally parts.

"I… can't remember much," Martin says, averting his gaze. "I recall near to nothing of the crash. They told me that the engines were on fire, and that the wing and side were damaged when I woke up. It's a little broken up, but I don't think I want to remember that." Slender fingers gripped the mug a little tightly, before he turned a small brave smile to Douglas. "Besides, I'm still here and alive. I trust you, Douglas."

"Memory loss, huh?" Douglas wasn't particularly surprised, but it did not ease the heaviness in his guts in the least, and he shifted, instead sipping from his coffee mug, tasting the familiar brew that never tasted right in the absence of the android, and put it down firmly as a sentimental notion.

"I remember everything else just fine," Martin said, pink tongue darting out to wet his lips, nervously. "Its just the crash. I only remember the plane being strange, even though the controls and meters were perfectly normal- "

_Douglas, the wings feel strange to me._

"-and that we were… we were increasing the speed of flight," the android was saying, brow furrowed, eyes firmly on his coffee as though it would yield him his lost data ad information that they had deleted and lost in order to repair him. "We were just exceeding the normal speed by… quite some… the numbers are jumbled up-"

_Douglas, something doesn't seem right. Requesting emergency landing._

_Nothing is wrong, the meters are all reading fine, Martin. Keep flying._

_No, something is wrong. It isn't the meters, I am requesting an emergency landing right now-_

_Permission denied. You are only a FTP, and I may well remind you who is well in charge here, without you making little assumptions and being twitchy about every little thing that is happening. Nothing will go wrong!_

_But Douglas-_

"-the plane, something caught fire, engines, I think. The engines caught fire-"

_Listen to me, Captain Martin Crieff. There is seldom anything that you can do right and proper right about now, and I am sincerely hoping that you are still capable of carrying out your job well and with the dignity worthy of your job title instead of crying wolf at every little figment of imagination from your mind-_

_Douglas._

_Just fly the plane, Martin-_

_Douglas, the engine is on fire._

"I think I… I lost control of the plane," Martin said quietly, almost ashamed, head bowed over the mug. "Can't remember much after that. Was there… was there anything else?"

_Pilot requesting for emergency landing-_

_Permission is granted. Martin-_

_The- the metal on the wing has- stripped off- I'm losing control of the plane, Douglas! We're going too fast!_

_The team had watched, as the graphs and the readings spiked and jumped erratically. The plane had gone into a spin, even as Martin struggled for control over the plane, managing to somehow right it just for a little, to aim for the runway once more in a nosedive that was too steep and too fast and tilted-_

_I'm sorry, Martin had whimpered, seconds before the crash, recording on the radio and by the monitoring computers, before it ceased into a crackle and a dead noise._

He looked at Martin, watching him with those clear blue eyes of his, the android worrying his bottom lip, anxious. "I'll do a better job next time, Douglas, I promise," he says, almost desperately, as though he is the one at fault, the one who needs reassurance and forgiveness when he does not.

Douglas looks at him, and then turns back to his screens.

"No. There isn't anything else that you need to remember."

When Martin drops the files that Douglas hands him later for no reason, the android rotating his wrist with a slight frown and a look of confusion on his face, stuttering apologies, Douglas fears that his blunder does not blow over this easily.

It began slowly, over the course of a few days. Initially, Martin forgets little things, losing track of himself, little inconsistencies when he leaves for coffee and comes back with tea, or when he stops suddenly in his work, looking at what is before him in consternation and confusion, blinking, before making the best of what he had been doing before. Occasionally, he stands, and makes as though to leave the office, before turning back to sit down once more in his chair, and resuming what he was doing without any explanation or realization of what he had just did.

"Douglas, what was I doing?" Martin asks, blinking down at the papers before him, pencil in hand, frowning and shuffling them around.

"Perhaps Sir had been filing?" Douglas suggests, glancing at the android sideways.

"I suppose so… " Martin says, uncertainly, laying them out neatly before him once more, to determine the type and order.

Douglas leaves him be, and does not remind him that it has been the fourth time that Martin had asked him the same question within a span of twenty minutes.

As much as folding origami out of scrap and recycled paper keeps Martin out of trouble, he does not escape the company's or the team's notice for long, especially when the stuttering kicks in, the android beginning to stutter and to jerk, caught as though in a skipping track, a rerun of motions and speech again and again. Douglas does not speak of it, and if Martin notices his increasing distantness, he does not say a word, instead getting increasingly jittery and uncertain by his side, wearing bit by bit on the engineer's patience, simmering guilt turning into irritation and annoyance and something stronger than simple dislike.

And Douglas tries, tries to accommodate Martin, to ignore the stuttering, pretending that everything was normal when it wasn't, as Martin's expression contorts and twist in a bout of stuttering, strange codes and numbers spilling from his lips, and feels suddenly quite sick, excusing himself from the room before Martin reestablishes himself. Somehow, the guilt and the sickness morphs into anger, into an expression that he can understand and relate to better, settling down in a slow burn in his chest, burning away the sick and the bile and the guilt. Why should he be affected thus by a – a tool? Androids were simply built to assist humans, and are in no way a critical and important part of their personal lives. He should not be this affected thus by a mere replaceable android. They weren't built to last, either way, and this was simply speeding the process along. He was in no way responsible – the team that did not fix Martin was.

It did nothing to sooth the nightmares that returned in his sleep, and in return, he threw himself into work, pushing Martin away and ignoring him, even as the android hangs about his heels like an attention starved puppy, innocent in his obliviousness to what is happening.

"Did I do something wrong?" Martin asks one day, stepping before him as Douglas makes to leave his office, the engineer often finding excuses not to work in the same workspace as Martin. "If I did I- I'm sorry, Douglas. Please."

Douglas merely looks at him, at the pleading look that Martin has in his eyes, one that machine has managed to replicate perfectly from the humans that made it, and simply pushed past him. "No, you're not," he says, leaving Martin alone in the office with flickering screens and empty chairs for company.

He does not know what the android does when he is away working. Perhaps he entertains himself by filing and re-filling, or filling out bits that Douglas missed out, or the dummy sheets that Douglas had provided him with, no longer trusting him with important data. Perhaps he spends his days alone in the office, watching the screens, or folding whatever he does, marveling over the paper plane sculpture that he no longer remembers was made with his own hands. Perhaps he spends the day in a malfunction. Either way, it is none of his business and Douglas makes it extremely clear that he does not care.

That is, until he finds a brand new android sitting in Martin's place one fine morning, plugged in to his unit and syncing information with their last flight information.

Noticing Douglas, the new android stood up, a smile spreading politely across his face. "Hello, Douglas. I will be your new Flight Test Pilot starting from today onwards," he says, extending a hand towards him. It felt unnatural, something strange and distant in his mannerisms. "My name is Kieran. Pleased to meet you."

Douglas does not reply. He does not speak, or move, to shake the android's hand ( the latest model, he notices remotely ), an unnecessary gesture that was only needed for humans to feel comfortable with each other.

_I trusted you._

Martin. _Martin._


	6. Chapter 6

_MRTN-10?_

_No, he responds only to Martin. Here, let me do it._

_Are you Martin Crieff?_

The strangeness had introduced itself in the form of two men that he had never seen before, hovering in the doorway of Douglas' office. Martin had been alone in the office as he usually is, keeping the two mugs of cooling coffee and quietly beeping screens company, going through old flight manuals that he had found a long time ago, page by page, committing each word to memory and taking down notes in his neat handwriting when the door behind him hisses open. He hopes it is Douglas, back early from work, perhaps to work a little more before his screens beside him, and he would probably have to re-make the coffee. No one likes cold coffee, after all, and the room is so empty and so very cold when there is only him in it. Instead, it is a voice that he has never heard before, and he turns, politely, and asks if there was anything that he could help them with, as Douglas was currently not in the office.

_Douglas-? No, we're- would you come with us for a while?_

He looks around the office, at the flickering screens and the neatly stacked piles of paper, and the empty chair beside him.

_Will it take very long?_

The men had shared a brief look at each other.

_No, it won't. Not really._

And so he had followed them, sitting down in a chair when they told him to, curious as to what all this is about. He seldom had contact outside of Douglas, and the team, and it was rather new and just a little unsettling that someone is looking for him, specifically by name. The two, however, didn't seem to be keen on explaining to him as to what is going on, instead exchanging idle talk between each other while running through data on their unit, which was much larger than usual, Martin noticed, the entire unit towering over him and much more complex than those that he had ever seen, wires trailing out from behind to sprawl and slither across the white floor. They had a few of those, all running numbers and figure and occasionally flashing graphs, screens an eerie, soft blue, and Martin found himself wondering where he was, and what part of the company he was in – it seemed important, somehow, even as a strange, niggling sense of unease began in the pit of his stomach.

"How long will this take?" He finally asks them, having enough of being ignored when they were the ones who asked for him in the first place. He wonders if Douglas is back in the office, although the engineer would probably ignore him again, as he had taken to lately. He just did not understand what he did wrong – he had tried to be more diligent in filing, in assisting him in the little things, and to not be annoying and putting himself in the corner recently, but Douglas simply went on ignoring him. He hoped Douglas would forgive him soon, somehow. He didn't like the empty office very much. Perhaps it was because he crashed the plane and was a bad pilot, so he would read up on his work once more, and try to do a better job next time, and hope for Douglas' forgiveness.

The man next to him looks up at him from his clipboard, consulting a table chart. "Oh, what? No, we're just checking once more, just in case." He steps around behind Martin, a hand wrapping around the back of his neck. "Lean forwards just a little, will you?" He says, a hand pressing Martin's head forward and down before the pilot could protest, hooking his collar down with a finger and brushing his hair back and out of the way.

"What is this about-?" Martin sounded shriller than he would have liked to be, pulling away even as the man released him, a hand coming up to rub at his neck, the man already turning away, attention on his clipboard once more.

"Yep, double check, this one is on the schedule today. Bit pity, too. Looks rather expensive and a delicate make – much better than the rest of his batch, anyway."

"Excuse me, can someone tell me what is going on and- and why I'm here?" Martin was decidedly uncomfortable with the way that they were speaking over his head as though he wasn't present in the room at all.

"Ugh, and they have to build them inquisitive, too," the other man grunted, not looking up from his monitors.

"You're scheduled for deletion today," the one with the clipboard says, twirling a pen, a smile that Martin did not return on his lips. "They've, ah, replaced you with one of the newer models. KRN-A. Faster processing speed, better calculations, bit more newer functions that probably won't be used, but that's about the gist of it."

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?" Martin is on his feet, glancing towards the door, feeling the beginnings of a panic attack starting.

"And great! We have a runner," the man at the unit groans, rubbing at his face. "I miss the days when they simply obey and listen to you." Martin ignores him in favour of inching towards the door.

"What, you don't know? That's certainly strange. It should have been keyed into you." The guy with the clipboard watches as Martin shakes his head, before he sighs, and scratches his head with his pen. "There's really no other way to put this, but you're an android."

"Just great," the other man mutters lowly, even as a cold dread settles deep into Martin's gut. "Just- great."

"You're an android, created and employed by the government as a… it says flight test pilot on the chart. Sorry but I guess they've replaced you. Says here you've been in that rather nasty crash, too, and there were some things that they weren't able to fix so that puts us where we are. Do kindly stop moving towards the door, please, and step over here?"

"You've- I think you've made a mistake," Martin says weakly, feebly even as he was led by the wrist over to a table, stepping over thick wires of various colours on the ground, trembling. "Please. I'm human. I can't be an android. That's … ridiculous." He forces a laugh, harsh and sharp and scraping to his ears. No one seemed particularly amused.

"If you must know, I don't enjoy my job, too," the man says. "What's his key code?"

The man at the unit recites a string of numbers and alphabets, and Martin suddenly finds himself standing straighter rooted to the floor._"Recognized."_ His mouth moves on it's own, and he is suddenly terrified.

"The table, MRTN-10. If you please."

Even as his body moves on its own volition, Martin trembles, and shakes, and pleads. "Please. I'm not- Let me speak to Douglas. Douglas will- Douglas will tell you." He climbs onto the table on his own accord, and sits on it, trembling even as he is guided to lie facing down on it. It feels cold and biting and the lights all of a sudden too glaring, leaving him altogether too exposed and vulnerable. "Please. _Please._"

"I really _hate_ it when they build them like this- "

"Like I said, I don't really enjoy my job that much." There was a pat between his shoulder blades, a hand ruffling his hair almost friendly-like, and he feels as though he is on the execution block. Perhaps, in the better sense of the word, he is.

Martin tries, fighting the choking rising terror within him and the threatening bile in his throat, tries his best to move, to get off the table, to run to the door and to look for Douglas. Douglas would know, could tell them that he was human. Douglas would fix everything, he was his engineer. They were- a team. He knows that Douglas is angry with him, but surely he wouldn't abandon him to these- these mad people? They were going to hurt him, and- _Oh God Douglas please notice that I am missing! _And what about the codes, then? His mind whispers traitorously. Why aren't you able to move now? Why do you obey so easily? His body feels just the same as it does, but he is unable to move, to lift even a single finger, paralyzed on the table, a subject for the madmen in the room. "Please. I want Douglas." He is ashamed, to hear his voice break, hot tears spilling down his cheeks even as they unzip the back of his suit, pulling it down around his waist, clinical fingers tracing across his lower back. He's human. He's android. He's human.

Where is Douglas?

He feels a sharp, acute pain, tracing a line across his lower back, and yelped, before the pain faded away, leaving a sense of numbness, and he trembled, paled as fingers pushed into the wound.

"Please don't do this to me." Oh God where was Douglas he needed him _now_.

The men ignore him, the sensation of fingers in a wound that did not cause pain deeply unsettling and sick, before they withdrew, still talking to each other about things that Martin could no longer follow and keep track of, their voice a buzz, words merging into each other, meaningless in the background. He only wants Douglas, for the man to right everything again. This was wrong, all wrong. It was a mistake – had to be a mistake because he cannot bear entertaining that it was anything else. He was Martin Crieff, Captain Martin Crieff, FTP to Douglas. He would suffer Douglas' anger and bite forever so long as the engineer would get him out of this mess, but the door remains silent and resolute, in spite of his tears.

_"This one's a really fine job, isn't he?"_

_"You know how much I hate these things."_

And when he feels the fingers probing again, something long and slim and cold pressing into the cut, and- slotting deep into his back with a rough click, and he jerks, and cries out in fear and alarm, and keeps on crying out at the information that suddenly floods his mind, invasive and massive in content. He senses the unit in him, a sleek and cold predator, running through his data and information and-

_I'm going to be deleted._

The realization strikes hard and cruel, and he sobs, screaming even as the units leave nothing unmolested, burrowing deep into his mind. It accomplishes nothing, and he remains lying upon the table, watching hopelessly as the screens display a new set of number, a new set of codes, running by too fast for his mind to comprehend now.

"Douglas, please! I just want to- I just want to talk to Douglas! Oh God- "

The word blinks up on the screens, blue, and he sobs, helpless and terrified and so very alone. _I don't want to go-_

"It won't take very long, I promise," clipboard guy says, almost soothingly.

"What are you doing talking to a fucking android? They don't matter- for fuck's sake they can't even feel- "

_I do matter. I do feel. I'm- I'm not an android. I love flying so- I must count for something, don't I?_

_I have to count for something, at least._

He thinks of Douglas, and of the planes, of the many models he's flown and taken to the air on their first virgin flight. He thinks of the people on their team, of… of the coffee he makes. Tea? Coffee? He isn't so sure. There was the… Douglas was angry, he was angry with him because… because he did something wrong, maybe. Something that Douglas… his engineer… _ohpleasepleaseplease_ the aeroplanes and his first flight was brilliant and Douglas did praise him… or did he praise his model and make that he was better built and developed or was he talking about the paper planes…?

Distantly the door slids open, a bright panel of light and freedom and humanity that he can never reach, a familiar figure silhouetted in it. He feels the hot track of tears – or fluid down his cheek, the blue light in his eyes dimming.

_Douglas,_ he sighs, almost a breathy caress of the engineer's name even as he runs yelling up to the table, to the android lying prone as though a pinned insect upon it, and he was glad, that this man came because… because…?

__Shut down_


	7. Chapter 7

Author's note: This is the end of the story. Thank you for your patience, and for staying with me throughout. I hope you like the ending.

* * *

The desk is mostly cluttered nowadays. The files are in a neat stack against the wall, quietly gathering dust from disuse. Papers scatter across the surface of the desk, covered in idly drawn diagrams and numbers in marks of graphite and ink, pencils and pens strewn around out of their holder, a chaotic mess beneath the silent monitors. They keep scrap paper in a spare box now, in the corner of the room, but no one uses it much, leaving it unsatisfied and empty, while the paper bin overflows with littered debris. Dirtied mugs sit atop the papers, stained with coffee and sugar and countless late nights without sleep. Occasionally, the objects are shuffled, papers thrown away, mugs washed and cleaned and refilled again, the stack of files reshuffled one day, and disappearing altogether the next day.

Kieran was a fine model, although his personality had quite the room for people to disagree with, and the team secretly made bets on whose personality it was modeled after, and how long it would take for someone to punch it in the face. He flies wonderfully, surer of himself than the last, although they aren't too sure if that was worth having to listen to him talk for the next hour or so. Personally, Douglas can't find it in himself to care. A job is a job, after all.

He works alone in his office as much as possible, and it is quiet except for the gentle whirring and soft beeping of the monitors. Some days, he finds that even the rustling of paper is too loud, and too crude in the silence enfolding them, and stops for a moment, listening. It never yields anything, and he does not know why he does it, but he keeps on hoping that perhaps one day, that might change.

"Don't put them there."

"What?" Kieran straightens, his arms full of boxes of books, files and papers. "Where am I supposed to put them, then? The desk?" He shifts the boxes in his arms, although Douglas knows that weights aren't exactly a problem for androids. "The desk is full."

"Put them on the floor, then. Just not there." Douglas turns back to his papers, shuffling noises coming from behind him, a grunt and then the sound of something heavy being set down, presumably on the floor.

"Geez. How dare they ask me to move these boxes for them? I'm a pilot, for god's sake, not a labourer." There was the sound of hissing doors, and silence returned once more, settling down comfortably, a tame cat.

Douglas scratches a circle in the middle of the tic tac toe he had been doing. He's often winning them nowadays.

The chair beside him remains empty.

Work is repetitive, and coffee doesn't quite taste the same anymore. It is always a little too sharp, a little too sour, and in need of a little more sugar. He drinks it, anyway, needing the caffeine to keep him up throughout the night. Plans for another plane comes in, and there are meetings. Eventually the crashed plane is repaired, and Kieran takes it out once more for testing all over again. It goes smoothly, and she takes to the sky almost like a charm, breezing through the phases without a sweat – hard work pays off, after all. Soon, she is ready for sale on the market, and a new plane comes in. There are new functions, new abilities, but the form remains the same. He pulls out a peanut from the auto-vend packet, and crunches into it - dull, dry and a little too salty. He reaches into the packet, and takes out another one anyway. The screens flicker before him, numbers and figures scrolling across its monitors.

Work is repetitive.

Occasionally, he entertains the thought of resigning.

The lock beeps as it scans his thumbprint, and then his retina. It is cold, and mechanical, and he nearly misses the familiar sound of jangling keys in his childhood as the door slides open without so much as a sound, although this has added security that it offers in the height of today's technology. The hallway floods with a clean light resembling natural daylight, and he toes off his shoes, setting his bag down to the side and out of the way, standing there for a moment, quietly absorbing the silence, and the stillness.

"Douglas? Is that you?"

The silence breaks, startled, the sound of pots and pans coming from the direction of the kitchen. The warm smell of dinner cooking curls gently through the air, and if Douglas concentrates, he can make out the smell of beef and teriyaki sauce. Running water reaches his ears, before the tap is shut off, and something glass clinks. Douglas allows himself a small, brief smile, before making his way into the kitchen. The sight that is presented is a familiar one, the smell of dinner enticing, laid out steaming on gleaming plates, glasses sparkling in the warm yellow light that he had installed for the kitchen. The tap runs again, before the other wipes his hands dry on his pants, turning with a smile.

_"Let's have dinner."_

"So, how was work?"

He pauses, a forkful of beef and rice on its way to his mouth. Their plates are nearly clean, by now. The food is good, wholesome and flavourful, warming from the inside. There is still some soup leftover in the pot, and a little bit of the salad, and chocolate mousse in the fridge, but all in moderate amounts. It is a comfortable atmosphere that wraps around just the both of them in the kitchen, and he had been rather enjoying the companionable silence from before.

"You know how it is," he says, at length. "Busy. We're still working on the project I told you about last week." He puts the forkful of beef and rice into his mouth, chews, and swallows. "It is, a little dull at times, and the food is horrible."

Soft laughter sounds, and a fork scrapes against a plate. "Well, then. You're lucky that I'm a good cook. How does packed lunches sound to you?"

"I wouldn't want to be any trouble."

"No trouble at all, if it means that you don't have to suffer the dull and horrible food. It_is_ unhealthy for you, you know. How does chicken wraps sound?"

"That… that would be wonderful. Yes, please."

The legs of the chair scrape noisily against the floor, and there is the sound of the fridge door opening, with it a whoosh of frigid air against Douglas' skin.

"There's still some soup leftover. Do you want anymore before dessert?"

"Yes, that would be wonderful."

Later, when all the chocolate mousse is gone, and the table cleared, Douglas makes his way to the bathroom with the sounds of washing pots and pans and plates behind him. The tiles are cold against his bare feet, and he sighs as the spray of hot water washes his fatigue and the exhaustion down the drain, the long day washing off his skin along with the scent of peppermint in the hazy condensation in the bathroom. The scent lingers, misting up the mirror as he towels himself dry, wiping a finger across the glass. He is older, and his hair isn't getting any blacker. He rubs his face with the towel, and ignores the mirror as he brushes his teeth.

He is already in bed when he steps out of the bathroom, comfortably snugged up beneath the duvet, with only his mop of copper curls peeking out over the top. Douglas smiles and pads over, getting onto his side of the bed with minimal fuss. The body next to him shifts, and then scoots closer, an arm slipping around his waist and pulling the both of them closer. Obligingly, Douglas wraps his arm around him as well, tangling fingers into the copper curls, and smoothing the hair back from his face, smiling indulgently at the clear blue eyes that blink up at him. The night is quiet, soothing, the sky completely void of stars, an obsolete cloud of black from all the pollution that humanity has done.

"Douglas?" His voice is soft, gently treading.

He caresses a pale, freckled cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Yes, Martin?"

"I had a strange dream, last night."

Douglas makes a soft sound, waiting for Martin to go on. "What did you dream of?"

"Don't laugh at me- It's- It's strange but I was really happy in it. I'll tell you if you promise not to laugh."

"I promise. Scout's honor."

"I- oh, alright. One week without desserts if you laugh." The pout was extremely endearing, and Douglas chuckles, stealing a brief kiss from him, drawing a soft huff of breath from the other, before he rested his head against Douglas. Something outside the window chirps, and a bright beam of light passes through the window into their bedroom briefly, before it sweeps away once more. Douglas is quiet, petting Martin's hair idly, waiting.

"Flying," Martin says softly, reverently into the darkness. "I dreamt of flying. With you. In an aeroplane. I- I know its stupid and all and you'll think that it's childish- " When no witty remark came his way, Martin turns instead to look at Douglas, and props himself up with an elbow at what he sees in his face. "D-Douglas? Is there something wrong? I mean- "

Douglas blinks, before shaking his head, instead pulling Martin down and close, hugging the android tightly to him, drawing in a shuddering breath that he did not know he had been holding, as something that might have be tears prick at his eyes, swallowing against the lump in his throat and the strange sensation of something between his ribs.

"Is- is something wrong?" Martin sounds concerned, peering up at Douglas, brow furrowed in worry. "I didn't- didn't say anything wrong did I?"

Douglas shushes him, and presses a kiss to his forehead, the android's skin cold beneath his lips. "No, you said nothing wrong. It is a wonderful dream. Sleep, now."

Martin shuffles a little beneath the duvet, and gets into a slightly more comfortable position, and does not speak again for the rest of the night, the blue light in his eyes dimming before he closes them, Douglas clutching him tightly against him, almost afraid to let go, or to look away.

He stays awake for what must have been hours, before he finally relaxes, just the slightest bit, as the glowing red minutes of the clock continue to tick. And as his eyes drift close, maybe, just maybe, he allows himself to hope, that perhaps, he has been forgiven.

**ACT 71, SECTION 27A, CLAUSE 8 C**

Androids (as defined by Act 71, Section 1, Clause 1) are not to be created to replicate human behavior in its entirety. This includes the replication of emotions and psyche, as well as physical expressions. The range of behaviors allowed to be reproduced are to be restricted to that which pertains to its functions.

Shappey Aerospace Industrial Research Corporation is awarding Douglas Richardson, Chief Engineer of Project 787, the rights to the purchase and ownership of Android Code: MRTN-1027834590-AE7137-259463175, Model: MRTN Version 10.03 under fulfillment of the condition that all information pertaining to the Company and Projects 256, 340, 418, 595, 598, 673, 699 and 787 are deleted with no mode of retrieval.

Approved by President of Shappey Aerospace Industrial Research Corporation G. Shappey (Signed 8th August 2512)


End file.
